Samsung’s 8-inch competitor of iPad mini — the Galaxy Note 8.0 — was officially unveiled for public viewing at MWC 2013, just a couple of days ago. The feature that differentiates this tablet from other 8-inch tablets is the ability to make phone calls. Yes, Galaxy Note 8.0 is a calling tablet.

Let me tell you, with Galaxy Note 8.0, Samsung has brought nothing new to the table — Note 8.0 looks like Galaxy S III and features hardware specs that are more or less like Galaxy Note II. Like all other 2013 Samsung devices, Note 8.0 has chrome-plated edges and a not-so-great-looking plastic build.

Complete official tech specs of Galaxy Note 8.0 are listed below.

DIMENSIONS & PHYSICAL SPECS

210.8 mm x 135.9 mm x 7.95 mm

338 grams

DISPLAY SCREEN

8-inch TFT screen

WXGA (1280 x 800) pixel resolution

189 ppi pixel density

PROCESSING UNIT

1.6 GHz quad core Exynos 4 processor

ARM Cortex-A9 chipset

GRAPHICS UNIT

Mali-400 MP

RAM

2 GB

CAMERA

5-megapixel AF rear camera

1.3-megapixel front camera

Full HD 1080p video recording @ 30 fps

INTERNAL STORAGE

32/64 GB internal storage — expandable up to 64 GB via a microSD card

OPERATING SYSTEM

Android v4.1.2 Jelly Bean

OTHER FEATURES

HSPA+ mobile network

aGPS + GLONASS (3G)

High-speed connectivity — Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0

S-Pen apps

4,600 mAh battery

The tablet is scheduled to go on sale sometime in Q2, this year. As I said before, Galaxy Note 8.0 is a new sized tablet with neither a new design nor new hardware specs, so why would anyone want to buy this tablet. This question would be answered when Samsung puts a price tag on this iPad mini competitor.